Under Stormy Skies
by anaer
Summary: Dead. He was dead. His life was over. Yesterday, no one had ever heard of Wallace Rudolph West. Today, the whole world knew he was Kid Flash. All because of that stupid field trip. (Previously Titled: Unmasked)
1. Chapter 1

**Under Stormy Skies**

"Mr. Falkoff! Mr. Falkoff! Wait, wait, I'm here!"

The whole bus turned to look out the windows to see their erratic classmate running up the ramp, red hair flopping in the wind in his attempt not to miss the fieldtrip everyone had been looking forward to since the beginning of the school year. All week, the class had been talking non-stop about this trip, and most students had actually made it to school early for once. No one, though, was surprised to see Wally West as the straggler who almost missed the bus, least of all their highly unamused teacher. Gregory Falkoff had been teaching science in the Central City Public School system for over twenty years, and never in all that time had he had a student so consistently tardy, attention deficit, problem-causing, and generally lazy as Wally West. It grated on his nerves, especially because the boy had consistently been winning science fairs since the fifth grade. There was no reason for him to be barely passing his class.

"Mr. West," the middle-aged man greeted coolly, staring down his crooked nose at his student who had just made it to the doors of the bus, surprisingly not panting despite the heavy exertion he had clearly juts undergone. "I see you decided to join us—at your own leisure, of course."

Wally grinned nervously, a hand scratching the back of his head. "Sorry, sir, but my uncle dropped me off today, and, well, he's always _running late_." He giggled slightly, as if at his own personal joke, but that was almost commonplace with the teenager. "And he signed me in and everything, and Ms. Leroy gave me this note for you," here he handed over said note, "and told me I was on this bus." The teacher huffed to himself as he glanced over the seemingly valid and unforged tardy note before moving out of the way and allowing the boy onto the bus with a flippant wave of his hand. The redhead grinned wider and flashed the greying man a thumbs up before making his way to the back of the crowded bus. He clearly wasn't paying much attention to where he stepped, as he didn't notice the foot suddenly barring his way until he was already tripping over it. It took most of his willpower to just let himself fall and determinedly ignore his usual bullies high-fiving and the rest of the bus laughing at his predicament as he continued to the back where he saw his best normal friend, Hunter Zolomon, waving him over. An empty spot was next to the brown-haired boy, and Wally wasted no time in plopping down in the seat, continuing to ignore the laughter that had yet to start dying down.

"You are so full of it, you realize that, right?" Hunter commented over the din of noise from everyone talking at once as the bus pulled away from the ramp.

"Hey, that was a legitimate excuse this time, I swear," the perpetually late redhead responded, ruffling around in his backpack to pull out a half-eaten bag of chips.

"No, I think Hunter's right," a black-haired girl leaned over the top of their seat and smirked down at the two of them. "You eat, drink, and sleep crap, Wally."

"See? Linda agrees with me. You were about to miss this trip, weren't you, Mr. I've-been-to-S.T.A.R.-Labs-before?" The brown-haired boy shot his friend a rather pointed raised eyebrow, even as Wally practically pouted in response.

"I was not!" he protested half-heartedly while shoving a fistful of chips into his mouth, knowing that it was futile to argue with his friend. "My uncle is even worse about being on time than I am, but I stayed at his house last night, so he _had_ to drop me to school." That wasn't strictly the truth by no stretch of the imaginations, even if his excuse was mostly legitimate. While it was true that Barry Allen was never on time for anything (whereas Wally could make it at least half the time and absolutely hated being late), it was never without justification—even if neither of them could justify it to most people. But sometimes, say, on the way to school and work Captain Cold would decide to rob a bank and the Flash and his trusty sidekick Kid Flash would have to take care of it. It was not their fault that the "secret" part of "secret identity" dictated that they never actually told anyone the truth.

Besides, Wally had totally spent the night at his Aunt and Uncle's place, so that part was completely true.

"You're just lucky you have such a great friend who's willing to beat people off with a backpack to save you a seat."

"Yeah, I told him to just let someone else take it: let it teach you to be on time for once," Linda added in, and Wally glanced up at her with one of his patented flirtatious grins.

"Aww, babe, you know you love me," he replied before leaning over Hunter to glance out the window at the passing scenery. "But I mean, hey," he continued dramatically, sitting back up as he got his fill of the city going by and shoving another handful of chips into his mouth, "at least the day's off to a great start. Extreme tardiness, public humiliation, my one true love tearing a hole through my heart—how could it possibly get any worse?" Linda and Hunter both snorted, and picked up an earlier conversation ("You would know what we're talking about if you had gotten here on time."), leaving Wally alone with his chips and, after a bit more shuffling in his backpack, a rather interesting romance novel he had "borrowed" from Aunt Iris's bookshelf. The redhead had meant his final statement facetiously, but about forty-five minutes later, at the start of the class tour of S.T.A.R. Labs, things started to take a sharp turn for the highly inconvenient.

Wally wasn't normally one to ask for things, and history had proven that the times he did either went extremely wrong or extremely right (but, more often than not, a mixture of the two). For instance, when he was ten and spending the summer with his very favourite aunt and soon to be favourite uncle, he had only wanted to meet the Flash—in his firm belief (to this very day, in fact, not that he was biased in any way) the coolest superhero ever to exist—which had happened, as well as finding out that it was actually his uncle. And then he had spent the summer randomly being kidnapped by supervillain idiots who had no idea he was connected to the Flash in anyway beyond, "Oh, look, cute child makes great hostage!"

And then, the year he turned twelve. All Wally had wanted was to recreate the accident that gave Uncle Barry his powers—something that had happened, and rather successfully, to boot. What he hadn't planned on was his still-developing pubescent body to react negatively to the change, causing his body mind-numbing pain every time he tried to use his newly gained speed. Thankfully, he had gotten over that glitch with both mind and body relatively intact. And then, of course, there was this year's Independence Day.

Kid Flash still wasn't certain whether it had gone extremely right or extremely wrong. While there was definitely no Justice League membership coming to any of the sidekicks any time soon (especially not Roy, who had more or less defected to hippy-status and proclaimed the League "the Man"—but how cool was the new outfit and solo-act; Red Arrow made a lot more sense as a name than Speedy, anyways—and absolutely refused to have anything further to do with them), they had managed to garner some respect, their own team, and a new friend along the way, so it could be considered a win on that hand.

So Wally's history was very clear in that respect. The things he asked for he got, more often than not. The satisfaction of the experience, however, was oftentimes balanced out by an opposite and not always equal reaction. In the future, he would look back on this moment and decide that if he had just remembered this simple fact about his life, things would have turned out vastly different. As it was, he didn't, and walking in the back of his group's tour of the Labs with a couple of his friends, Wally was desperately wishing for anything to distract his usual group of bullies from slowing down to mess with him.

The worst part of having high school bullies was not, in fact, the humiliation he suffered at their hands on a weekly basis. It was the knowledge that he was a _superhero_. He could stop them as easily as breathing, but the unwritten laws of Secret Identities dictated otherwise. It was exceptionally frustrating because they did everything so _slowly_. Waiting for them to do something as mundane as give him a wedgie was like watching a turtle (of the non-teenage mutant ninja variety) try to hurt you…and letting it. In the split second it took them to come up with one "brilliant" insult, Wally had usually thought of about two hundred to use in reply—not that he ever did. Getting bullied was, quite simply, _really, really boring_.

"Oh, no, guess who just looked this way."

Wally looked up at the frustrated comment to see Jared Morillo glaring towards the front of the tour group, where a couple boys were whispering amongst themselves and shooting the occasional glance back, completely ignoring the tour guide droning on about the gene splicing they were currently being shown. The dark-skinned Hispanic boy seemed to grow angrier with every glance thrown their way.

"You know, they would leave you guys alone if you didn't let them walk all over you," Linda commented from next to Wally, peering around to speak at Jared. If Hunter were still there, he would probably make a comment in agreement, but Wally had been moved from Mr. Falkoff's group to Ms. Leroy's as the middle-aged teacher wasn't in the mood to deal with his least favourite child prodigy.

"And what would you recommend we do—fight them?" the black-haired boy shot back.

"Well, I'm not recommending violence, but a little backbone might go a long way, yeah," the girl replied.

"Oh, I can see it now," Wally cut in, ribbing his friend who could be even moodier than Superboy sometimes, "Jared vs. Owen—a fight for the ages. I'll see you in the next life, dude." The dark look he received was met with an even broader grin.

"And what about you?" Jared snapped. "I don't see you in a hurry to sign up for a round of smash the ginger."

"Well, maybe I just have more important things to worry about than those bull-headed idiots." Because Wally had bull-headed idiots of a whole other league to deal with when he wasn't in school…not the least of which was Robin.

"Yeah," Linda giggled, "like your total fangasms over the Flash."

"I do not have fangasms!" he protested.

"Oh, come on, Wally, we've all seen the inside of your bedroom," Jared was snickering, now, too, "You could give the Flash museum a run for their money."

So his bedroom was _themed_. It was perfectly understandable considering that not only was he the man's _sidekick_, he was his nephew, too.

"It's completely not my fault that Flash is the coolest hero _ever_," he defended rather grouchily. He tended to get rather pissy when people called him out on his fanboyness. Especially when Robin did it because Dick completely _knew_ the man was his uncle.

"Flash is so _not_ the coolest hero ever. _Batman_ is the coolest hero ever," Jared corrected.

Batman was so completely overrated in Wally's opinion. He said as much. "And I know for a fact that the Flash is, like, ten times more amazing than Batman will ever be," the redhead sidekick added for good measure.

"You sound like you've sat down and talked to both of them," Linda retorted.

As a matter of fact, he had.

"Well, Batman's just an urban legend, anyway." Robin was so going to kill him for using that argument. "And the Flash has _Kid Flash_."

"Yeah, don't you just wish that were you," Jared snorted.

As a matter of fact, it was.

"I wonder what they're like in real life," Linda mused. At the blank looks from her friends, she clarified: "Flash and Flash-Kid."

"Kid Flash," Wally corrected automatically. Honestly, could no one remember the name? It wasn't that hard.

"Kid Flash, Flash-Kid, Flash Jr., whatever. You know who I mean. But what do you think they do when they're not fighting crime and supervillains and such? Do they, like, hangout in their secret lair all day? Do they have regular lives? Does the Flash have a job, a wife? Does junior go to school?"

No, yes, yes, yes, yes. Not that Wally would ever say that out loud.

"Are you kidding?" he laughed in reply. "If that were me, I would _never_ go to school." That was such a lie, but what they didn't know wouldn't hurt, right? "Who has time for stuff like that when you're saving the world? I would totally abuse my power to pick up girls." Jared nodded firmly in agreement, and Linda snorted something under her breath that sounded rather suspiciously like, 'Men.'

Before the redhaired speedster could reply, though, a sharp whistle from the front of the group cut through the din of chatter and the students turned to face their teacher. Ms. Jennifer Leroy stood before a set of rather imposing doors and met them all with a broad smile. The young, twenty-something teacher was almost the complete opposite of the cynical, middle-aged Falkoff. Friendly and easy-going, she was also extremely approachable in a way that often reminded Wally of Black Canary. Jennifer Leroy had no problems at all dealing with students with short attention spans, and rather than getting irritated, she took the time to individually help them all. In fact, she had given Wally the idea that had won him the science fair last year. The teen had desperately hoped she would be teaching him again this year, but as the Central City School System would have it, he'd gotten Falkoff instead. Falkoff, who was also bitter that even after working in the school system for almost as long as the woman had been alive, she got the position as head of the science department instead of him.

"Okay, group!" the young teacher called. "I know this trip has been kind of boring so far, but I figure most of you will be interested in the next part, so please pay attention." A slight pause, before she added, "That means you, Wally." There was entirely too much laughter from the front of the group, but the redhead shrugged it off with a genial smile. The tour group stepped through the doors into a lab that looked identical to the two that they had already walked through.

"This, students," the doctor leading the tour—Mentz, the young sidekick thought the name was—began, "is where we do most of our metahuman research. Any crimes committed by anyone with any sort of special abilities usually gets processed through this room. Here, we work with the Flash a lot, as he likes to stop by on occasion. Speaking of the Flash, we've also been working with him to find out exactly how his abilities work…" The doctor droned on, with Wally in rapt attention. This was something Barry had mentioned to him, but only in passing detail. He was getting a more complete idea of what they were doing now, even if the doctor was careful not to give any important details away.

Unfortunately, three eggheads with attitude problems seemed like they wanted to ruin Wally's good day.

"Ugh, I knew they were going to come over here," Jared muttered to Wally, watching the three bullies carefully slip towards where the two of the stood. Linda had wandered away and was now engaged in a conversation with some of her girl friends.

"Hey, asswipes," the ringleader, one completely annoying Owen Mercer, greeted Wally with a shove. The extremely patient speedster just glared back.

"Oh, yeah, asswipes, that's creative," he muttered irritably. They were completely ruining all the interesting things that scientist guy had to say about Uncle Barry.

"Are you tryin' to say something to me?" the bully growled, not liking the response he was getting. Wally glowered but didn't say anything. The last thing he wanted to do was cause a scene of some kind on a field trip and end up suspended or expelled for it. Then he'd be forced to stop his "extracurriculars" for however long he was in trouble at school. Otherwise, he would have had a smart comeback for the loser and his two—well, for lack of a better word—henchmen.

Seemingly satisfied with that respone, the idiot turned to Jared. "You have my money, loser?" With a frustrated sigh, the Hispanic boy pulled out some cash and handed it over.

"Does anyone have any questions?" the scientist suddenly boomed from the front of the group, and the much under appreciated Kid Flash sighed to himself as he realized that he had just missed the end of the presentation.

"I have a question," an unfamiliar voice spoke up, and the whole group turned to see several armed men guarding the entrance to the lab. "How many kids do I have to kill until you give me what I want, doctor?"

Wally kindly took a moment to reflect on the fact that there were_ armed hostile men_ on his _school field trip_. Why the hell were there _armed hostile men_ on his _school field trip_? _Armed hostile men_ that were after something, clearly (and here, the redhead mentally slapped himself for pointing out the obvious). Of course they were after something. They wouldn't be here threatening students if they weren't after something.

It had only been ten minutes since the men had interrupted the information session—and they had wasted no time in rounding everyone up, including shepherding Mr. Falkoff's group into the rather large laboratory. They had forced the students into small clusters against the wall, each with their own guard, and were currently holding a gun to Ms. Leroy's head while the leader shouted questions at Dr. Mentz. Wally bit his lip as he looked around, fingers tapping impatiently as he tried to figure out what to do. Most of the girls, including the teacher, were crying, and the rest of them and most of the guys didn't look that far off from breaking out into tears, either.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about!" Dr. Mentz continued to protest.

"Doctor, we both know you have it!" the leader snarled back, gesturing to a couple of his men. The two of them yanked the sobbing female teacher up and dragged her to the centre of the room. "Be grateful I'm not starting with one of the kids!"

Wally's fingers tapped harder and faster, becoming a blur as he wondered what to do. There was no way he could change fast enough and take down all those goons at once, not when he had so inconveniently left his patented Flash ring in his backpack at the entrance to the Labs. And it wasn't even any of the regular crew, either. At least with one of the Rogues, he would be safe in the reassurance that the only people really in danger were the scientist-doctor-guy and Mr. Falkoff, what with their policy about women and children and all.

"I'm such an idiot," he muttered to himself, nervously watching the proceedings. "What do I _do_?"

"What do you _do_?" Jared whispered angrily to him, having overheard the last bit. "Are you stupid or something? No, scratch that, you are. You're not some kind of superhero, Wally—" but the redhead had already tuned him out, his brain suddenly switching into overdrive as all his functions began to speed up. Everything around him was suddenly going in slow motion, getter slower and slower with each passing fraction of a second, and the unmasked sidekick saw the hammer on the gun pointed at his favourite teacher's head going down, and then the finger was squeezing the trigger and a bullet was about to come out of the barrel. In what wasn't even a second to everyone else but registered as much longer in his mind, Wally was across the room, pulling Ms. Leroy out of the way of the bullet and slowing back down to normal time. The bullet hit the floor with a _ping!_ and everyone started at the abruptness. Their initial thought was clearly, 'The Flash!', but, no. Their teacher was out of the way, Wally West next to her, and no one was quite sure what had happened. No one except the ringleader and Dr. Metz, who seemed to figure it out at about the same time, both turning to look at the red haired boy who knelt next to his teacher.

"You!" the guy in charge announced loudly. "You're that…that _Flash Brat_!"

"It's _Kid Flash_," Wally complained loudly, ignoring the way his classmates were suddenly whispering amongst themselves as they began to process exactly what had just happened. "Honestly, it's not that hard to remember! It's not Flash _Brat_ or Flash _Kid_ or Flash _Jr_. or Flash _Boy_, or Flash-_Tot_," which he had, on one memorable occasion, actually been called, "It's _Kid Flash_, okay?"

Before the man could answer, slightly taken aback by the young hero's forwardness, Wally was accelerating again, sliding past and around the guards, careful to disarm each one as much as he could. He wasn't moving nearly as fast as his mentor could, but Kid Flash was sure he was nothing more than a blur to everyone else in the room as he took the time to break all their weapons before decelerating to a stop.

"And I really do not appreciate the way you tried to kill my teacher. I mean, god, even _supervillains_ have more respect than you do," the redhead continued once he was stopped. His hands were on his hips as he glared at the confused gunmen who were looking for their weapons. "And—oh, damn, Flash is going to _kill_ me for this. I just ruined my whole 'secret identity' thing…and for idiots who aren't even _competent_!" Okay, so they were actually fairly competent; they just hadn't planned for one of the students involved in their holdup to moonlight as a superhero in his spare time. Wally wasn't thinking about that, though, as he made quick work of them, barrelling into each one with enough force that he was sure they wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. The only thing on his mind was that two whole classes of high school students (as well as a whole group of baddies, two teachers, and one well-respected scientist) knew his _secret identity_.

The bad part of moving so fast was that while he could process things faster than a lot of computers, he was still a teenager and, as such, it sometimes took his brain a while to catch up to his actions.

With a frustrated sigh, the perturbed sidekick slid back to his teacher, helping her up.

"Ms. Leroy? Are you all right?"

"Um, yes, I—wow. You just…Wally, you…saved me…Flash Boy…" and then the shocked teacher, who had been staring with something like awe, passed out in a dead faint. The redhead sighed again and rested her down before zipping back to where he had been sitting barely a few minutes ago in the space of less than a second. There was, after all, no real point to him pretending to be as slow as everyone else anymore. Seconds ticked by where no one did much more than stare at who had previously just been the school's weird science geek, each stretching out longer and longer as Wally's nervous mind sped up restlessly until finally he couldn't take it anymore.

"You might want to call the police," he suggested as patiently as he could, and Mr. Falkoff and Dr. Mentz hurriedly snapped to attention, the teacher pulling out his cell phone as the scientist hurried over to the locked lab doors to call down security.

Everyone else, including his friends, continued to stare.

**TBC...**

Author's Notes: So, this is a fic I've had unfinished for a while; some of you might recognize it from waaaay back in round three on the anon meme. Well, I figured it was about time I posted it up here for everyone else's reading pleasure. This one doesn't have any pairings so far, and I don't plan on adding any. Enjoy!

And please be so kind as to drop a review, they really do give inspiration to weary writers~


	2. Chapter 2

**Under Stormy Skies**

What happened after that, Wally is actually kind of embarrassed to say, wasn't really that dramatic. Before security got there, the anxious redhead mustered up the courage to confront his classmates (and teachers), basically begging them not to tell anyone and stressing the overall importance of the "secret" part of the identity. The group had continued to stare blankly, stuck somewhere between awe and shock, but with a bit more prodding, the paranoid sidekick had gotten them to agree. When security arrived and questioned them all, the general consensus was that it had all happened to fast for anyone to see, prompting them to write it off as "saved by the Flash". Everyone in the class got dismissed early, and if the bad guys rambled about knowing Kid Flash's secret identity, it got written off as the ranting of mad men.

The days that followed didn't bring any significant changes to Wally's life. His friends ribbed him between shocked awe and the myriad of questions they had for him, and if Mr. Falkoff went a little easier on him in class, well, that was no big deal, really. There was a not-so-surprising decline in the random appearances of one Owen Mercer in Wally's general surrounding area—but, well, that was just a benefit. As it was, things easily stayed the same, albeit with his non-hero friends quizzing him on his extracurricular activities almost everyday and shared looks among his classmates who had been there. Best of all, no one found out that his secret identity had been compromised.

And by no one, Wally meant Batman.

…Or, at least, that's what would have happened had Wally lived in a perfect world. Unfortunately, he didn't live in a perfect world, and the events that followed were nothing like the ones listed above.

The exposed sidekick did manage to convince everyone not to give away his identity, and the common consensus for security _was_ that everything had happened too fast for anyone to see. That was as far as the redhead saw before his nerves got the better of him, and, with Mr. Falkoff's permission, he ditched. Running across the country a few times was enough to clear his head, and he stopped at home for literally a second to leave a note for his parents so they wouldn't worry when they found out what happened before heading to Happy Harbour.

Mount Justice was empty when he arrived, most of his team at home, at school, or with their mentors. Miss Martian and Superboy were also nowhere to be found, and Wally guessed they were out exploring, as they often did on afternoons when there was nothing else going on. This was perfect, though, as now that he was finally slowing down, the Fastest Boy Alive was forced to figure out what he was going to do. A quick raid of the fridge uncovered a whole feast—proof that M'gann had been watching the cooking channel again—that he set out on the table.

"I'm going to have to tell Uncle Barry," he moaned to himself, shoving food into his mouth at a rate that would've prompted a disgusted comment from Artemis had she been there to see. "I'm going to have to tell Uncle Barry, and—oh my god. What if someone _talks_? Dead. I'm dead. My life is over. Supervillains are going to sneak into my house at night and kill me. I'm never going to be able to go to school again. Coach Bernstein is going to stop asking me to join the track team." Wally paused for a second. That last one was actually a good thing, come to think of it.

Either way, Wally was going to have to inform his Uncle that a good fifty high school students now knew he was Kid Flash. Panic was welling up inside of him again, and Wally jumped up from the table, food unfinished, and headed for the entrance at top speed, whooshing right by M'gann and Superboy, returning from their trip to the grocery store. He spent most of the day just running like that, at least until the whole team was summoned for an emergency mission that had been more than enough to take his mind off the day's events. When he finally stumbled home at one in the morning and collapsed into his bed, more mentally drained than physically, the last thought on his mind was that he would deal with this in the morning.

The next morning was Thursday, and the redheaded boy woke to sunlight streaming on his face through the small cracks in the blinds and a louder chatter outside than normal. He relaxed into the warmth for a second before stretching with a yawn as he got up to get ready for school. In a couple seconds, he was fully dressed, his bed made, teeth brushed, and dirty clothes shoved under his bed for when his mom checked to make sure his room was clean. Walking over to the window, he opened the blinds all the way and then paused as he surveyed the scene in front of him. There were—people. Lots and lots of people camped out on the front lawn of his house, and a lot of them had video cameras. The professional kind, the ones with logos emblazed on the—news reporters! There were news reporters camped out on his front lawn.

As Wally's mind processed this fact slower than normal—he would forever blame it on the time of morning—the chatter turned into a din of noise, people rushing for their cameras.

"It's him! That's the kid!" he heard one reporter yell, suddenly kicking him back into action as he yanked the blinds closed as fast as he could—which, considering the speed the blinds moved at, was entirely too slow for his liking.

"Mom? Dad?" he called, taking the stairs to the first floor of his house in the space of a second. "What's going on outside?!" he exclaimed, darting through the house in search of his elusive guardians.

Wally found them in the kitchen, and suddenly wished he hadn't. Frustrated looks were on their face as they stopped whatever conversation they had been having with…the Flash. Barry sat at the table, his cowl pulled down and an extremely unpleased look on his face as all three turned to face the teen.

"Actually, that's what we were going to ask you, Kid," his uncle replied. Wally, in that moment, just about died.

xxx

Yesterday, outside of a few people in the Keystone-Central area and the town of Blue Valley, Nebraska, no one had ever heard of Wallace Rudolph West. When questioned, no one would have been able to tell that he had red hair or green eyes or that he was short for his age at 5'5" (but still growing!). Most people would have no idea that for the past five years, his science fair projects had made it to state level—and three of those had made it to nationals. Nobody would have known that he was born to Rudolph and Mary West fifteen years ago, or that his 'dad' was actually his step-father, a cop named Antonio Verdi, as his mother has divorced his real father—or even that his real dad was rotting in some state penitentiary somewhere in Nebraska. It wouldn't have been common knowledge that he and his parents had moved to the Central-Keystone area four years ago, when Antonio had gotten a job with the Keystone City Police Department.

Yesterday, this wasn't common knowledge. Today, not so much. Wally gaped blankly at the TV, processing it entirely too slowly for someone touched by the Speed Force. There were two pressing questions on his mind. The first: _'How did they find out all this stuff so fast?'_ The second slipped out without him realizing it, though.

"Why did they have to use _that_ picture?" he moaned as his eighth grade yearbook picture flashed on the news for the millionth time in the past five minutes.

"Yeah, they did get your bad side that year, didn't they?" Barry joked, trying to ease some of the tension in the room. He was sitting on the couch next to Wally, the cowl on his uniform pulled down as he observed his shell-shocked nephew.

"_Barry_," his ex-sister-in-law-in-law chided from where she stood in the doorway of the living room, her husband's arm around her waist. A concerned look was on her face. "This is a serious problem!"

He waved her silent as Wally's attention turned back to his family.

The forlorn mentor sighed, running a hand through his short blonde hair. "Your mother's right, though, Kid. This _is_ a serious problem." The teenager opened his mouth to protest, but his Uncle cut him off before he could say anything. "I'm not saying you did wrong. You did the right thing for the situation you were in—your identity isn't worth people's lives. I'm just…_disappointed_ that you didn't come talk to me yesterday. We could've done better damage control, even had J'onn mind wipe the people in your class, your teachers."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Barry, I was just…um…scaredyou'dbemad."

"I'm not going to be mad over something like that, Wally. I'm not Batman," the blonde scientist grinned, ruffling his nephew's bright hair affectionately. "Batman who most likely _will_ be angry, but only because he's concerned deep down in that empty, black heart of his. Also, he'll probably be pissed off that you trusted a bunch of teenagers to keep a secret like this—ignoring the fact that you're still…_young_ yourself. But we do need to figure out how we're going to deal with this. Everyone knows you're Kid Flash, and mass mind wipes are a tad unethical."

"Yeah, but…it's not like the Rogues are going to come after me or anything, right? So it should be…okay, right?" the freckled teen tried tried, hope reflecting in his green eyes. He ignored the underlying, 'You were kind of stupid, Wally' that had been clear in Barry's tone.

"Well, no, I don't imagine the Rogues coming after you anytime soon, but you have to remember that you're working for a team that goes on undercover missions. That's something you'll have to talk to Batman about, though—_yourself_. I'm not getting in the middle of that conversation, sorry, Kid."

"Can't he just deny his involvement?" Mary asked. Her voice had taken on a pleading, slightly desperate tone. "Say they got the wrong person?"

"They have _video_ _evidence_, Mom. I can't really deny the surveillance tapes from the lab." The redheaded teen rested his hands in his arms with a sigh. A moment of silence passed between all four people in the room.

"But right now," Antonio spoke up, and Wally glanced back to look at his step-father, "I think the more pressing issue is that school starts in ten minutes and you have to get past the jungle of reporters out there…and it would probably be best not to just speed past them, much as I know you want to, son."

"You mean I have to actually _confront_ those people?" The look on the young speedsters face was one of abject horror. Everyone knew that news reporters were secretly demons waiting to suck out your soul—they were vampires who, once latched on, never let go. Just look at Superman—he had ended up _marrying_ one (Wally was conveniently ignoring the fact that his favourite aunt also worked for a news station).

"Well, if you don't confront them now, you'll have to later," Barry inserted as he pulled his cowl back up, fully transforming himself into The Flash. His young sidekick just looked at him blankly, and the red-clad hero watched the boy process through all possible decisions in under a second. He knew what decision Wally was going to make an instant before the freckled boy jumped up, moving in superspeed, and grabbed his backpack, zipping out of the house and past all the relatively motionless reporters. The call of, "I'll deal with them later! Bye Mom, Dad!" caught up several moments after he had sprinted out the door.

"That boy," Mary sighed to herself, combing out reddish-brown hair with her fingers. "He's going to be the death of me, I swear." She took a couple seconds to herself, before turning to the most important person in her son's life. "So…what _are_ you going to do about this? I mean, you and your Justice League can fix it somehow, right? I don't want my son's choice of extracurricular activities endangering him anymore than they have to."

"Mary, I don't know that there's anything I _can_ do," Flash replied in all seriousness. "I can't just make people forget what they know."

"Can't you just go back in time and stop it from happening?" the mother tried again. "Use that treadmill thing."

"Even if I were to use the cosmic treadmill, I can't go back and change what happened. It doesn't work like that. We're just going to have to deal with this….somehow…" He sighed. "I'm going to talk to the Justice League—they probably have an idea about the situation by now—and see if they have any suggestions. But for now we're just going to have to ride this out."

xxx

Wally approached Central City High at top speed, and with a sigh noticed the seemingly frozen bodies of even more reporters lurking outside the front. He changed directions almost instantly, zipping around to enter in through the back entrance of the school (where there were still reporters, but markedly less of the annoying gnats). Still yet bustling bodies of his fellow students were easily avoided as he made a beeline for the bathroom, only coming to a stop in one of the stalls—and running into the wall for his efforts. It was hard having superspeed when he was such a klutz. His mother blamed it on puberty.

"Just you watch," Mary was always saying, "When you grow into your feet, you'll never trip again."

Yeah, if he ever actually _grew_. It bothered Wally frequently that he was the third shortest on the team. It didn't matter that his other three team members were an Atlantean, a Martian, and a genetically engineered alien clone. The only two people he was taller than were Artemis (who didn't count because she was a girl and he was supposed to be taller than her—even if it was barely) and Robin (who was two years younger than him and had only just started growing but was already taller than Wally had been at thirteen). The fifteen-year-old had looked up the average height for guys his age—5'8"—and he fell a whole three inches short. Even everyone's surety that he was just a late bloomer was no reassurance ("Tallness runs in the family," was another of his mother's favourite sayings, and even Uncle Barry had given him a whole talk about how most men grew well into their twenties). As far as Wally was concerned, he would forever be short and clumsy and even when he finally became his own hero and gave up the Kid Flash mantle (for what name, he hadn't decided on yet, though he and Robin talked about it all the time, especially after Speedy had become Red Arrow) no villains would ever take him seriously and they would just laugh at him for always running into things and tripping over air and the fact that he couldn't vibrate through things without getting a bloody nose—all while sitting outside his house eating popsicles because they would _all know his not-so-secret identity_.

Wally banged his head against the door of the tiny green stall out of frustration before huffing and stepping out of it. He pointedly ignored the blatant stares he got from the other two bathroom occupants as he walked out of the bathroom and down the hallway to homeroom. It seemed there was no one who could stop looking at him in his entire school—students, teachers, and faculty alike—and the redhead spent the entire walking completely tuning out all the hushed whispers and awed stares that followed him until he walked into his classroom. Then, everyone just fell silent and gaped. Wally stood awkwardly in the doorway for what seemed like five hours to his fast-processing mind, but was only a few seconds. He felt like the new student all over again, only this time everyone actually _liked_ him.

"Oh, Mr. West, you're here," his homeroom teacher—Mr. Jorgensen—was obviously surprised as he greeted the boy. The usually mousy man seemed more nervous than normal. "And…you're on _time_."

Oh. That explained why the man seemed extra skittish. Though, in Wally's defense (that he refrained from saying out loud), he was only ever late when Barry ran him to school. His uncle had a legitimate deficiency against being on time. Fastest man alive, and still always the last one to show up anywhere.

Completely ignoring his teacher, the redhead moved to take his usual seat in the back of the room. He plopped down in a desk next to Hunter and grinned nervously at his friends. Linda sat in front of him, a rather thick novel in hand, with his other friend, Chester, on his other side, the large black boy munching away at a Butterfingers.

"Uhh…hey, guys." The sidekick smiled nervously as the chatter in the room began to pick back up, the rest of the kids in the class adjusting to his presence. Wally also ignored the fact that they were most likely talking about him.

"Good morning, Wally," Linda replied simply, no different from usual.

"H-hey, Wally," and that was Chester (more commonly referred to as Chunk due to his large size) who, despite being the only other regular member of Central City High's Science Club, actually hadn't been on the Field Trip yesterday and had probably found out from the news.

The young speedster waiting for his third friend to say something, but when no reply was forthcoming, he frowned.

"Um…hey, Hunter," he greeted more directly this time, and now it was obvious he was being ignored, especially with the way the brown-haired teen shot Linda a pointed look.

The half-Asian girl sighed, muttering, "You guys are so immature," before turning to Wally directly. "Hunter wants me to inform you that he's not speaking to you at the moment."

"What? Why not!" he demanded. This was so ridiculous, especially as he watched the other boy pull out a piece of paper, scribble something down, and hand it to Linda.

"I thought I was your best friend; how could you not tell me?" The girl read rather monotonously.

"You _are_ my best friend—or one of them, at least," Wally all but pouted. "But, hello—_secret identity_." This was so completely not fair. There were more hasty scribbles and then another note passed to Linda—who just seemed bored at this point.

"I bet you told your other best friends about your secret identity," and that was an even more blah reading than before from the black-haired Asian.

And, okay, so Wally couldn't really deny the fact that Robin knew his secret identity, but— "Only because he has one, too!" the redhead couldn't help but protest. Hunter seemed to take that as all the confirmation he needed, though, as not even another note was passed to Linda. Wally groaned and dropped his head onto his desk with a rather loud thud. He stayed like that for a minute before a thought suddenly occurred to him and he glanced back up at Linda.

"You're not…treating me any different?" he ventured slowly.

She smiled at him, her dimples showing. "Does the fact that you like to run around in spandex in your free time change the fact that you're a cocky idiot?" It was amazing how the Asian girl could say some of the same insulting things as Artemis, but make them seem so endearing.

"Um…no?" he replied nervously, glad for that one shred of normality in the media circus his life was turning into.

"Exactly," Linda replied before turning back to the book she had been reading before he had sat down. Wally opened his mouth to say something else to her—maybe a thank you, he wasn't sure—when the classroom door opened again, causing everyone to stop what they were doing once more. Only this time, instead of being greeted by a recently revealed superhero, in through the door stepped the bane of Wally's existence: a news reporter.

"Um…Fred Jorgensen?" the blonde lady began, a charming smile on her face as she flashed her visitor's pass that just sent spiders skittering through Wally's stomach. "I'm Natalie Smith with KMFB Channel 4. I'd like to have a word with one of your students." Everyone turned at looked at Wally at once. For a second, the super-powered teen thought about zipping out of there before anyone could catch him, but he figured he'd made enough of a spectacle by just showing up. He didn't need to add to anything by blatantly showing off.

As the reporter led Wally out of the classroom to his doom, he faintly wished that he _had_ just dealt with this before he zipped out of his house that morning like his father had suggested. At least then he would've had his parents and uncle there to support him. Wally really needed to learn to think before acting.

xxx

"Thanks, George," the reporter smiled blindingly bright as she responded to the news anchor talking to her (and the thousands of people watching this at this very moment from their couches—supervillains included), "I'm here live at Central City High School with the Flash Kid—"

"_Kid Flash._" God, why could no one ever remember the name? It was simple!

"—Kid Flash himself. Mr. West, is it?" the blonde bimbo turned partially away from the camera to face the teen. Her microphone was shoved directly under his nose, and an expectant look was on her terrifyingly interested face. He felt like he had that one time he had been forced into the school's rendition of _Julius Caesar_ (the guidance office had forced him into drama, rather than letting him take an extra science class) and his toga had fallen off on stage in front of the entire audience.

…At least this time, he wasn't mostly naked.

"Um…it's Wally," Kid Flash corrected in a mostly resigned voice. This was clearly going to happen no matter what his opinion was. Who the hell had even let a reporter _into_ the school? Didn't that violate some code in one of the five million handbooks the school board forced them to read at the beginning of each year? If it didn't, Wally firmly believed that it should. He was, however, grateful that it seemed like the anchor had introduced the segment because he would definitely have zipped off if the lady had forced him to wait through all the introductions—and that would definitely only cause even more of a media storm. There was a difference, after all, between everyone seeing archived footage of him saving people, and using his powers to escape on _live television_.

"Ladies and gentlemen, everyday after school this young man works with Central City's very own Flash, putting his life on the line to help keep us safe." And, oh dear Lord, she really was about to go into a long introduction. Wally did the only thing he could think of to not make this situation even more of a mess.

"Um…could we do this faster? I have English," he cut in, and Natalie Smith looked completely taken aback for all of five long, drawn out seconds before that sickeningly sweet smile was back on her heavily made-up face. Even with his gratuitous nature when it came to flirting with women his own age and older, the redhead would never have tried to put the moves on such a fake lady. Her boobs were probably plastic, too.

"Oh, of course. So, you're fifteen, aren't you, Wally? And in the tenth grade?"

"Um, yeah." He was shifting his weight from foot to foot so fast that no one could perceive he was moving.

"What made you decide to become the Flash's sidekick?"

"I'm his _partner_," the boy corrected rather petulantly. "And the Flash has always been my favourite superhero. I founded the Flash fanclub at my elementary school—that was before I had my powers."

"So you weren't…born with your speed?"

"No," Wally replied. A moment of silence passed, and he realized that she wanted more than that. In the most deadpan manner he could (one that even Robin would be proud of) he continued, "I was hit by magical lightning from beyond that, instead of killing me, gave me superpowers."

The reporter blinked, unsure if he was being serious or not. "But why help people?" she returned to her earlier line of questioning. "Why risk your life everyday for hundreds of people you don't know?"

"What would you rather I do, turn to a life of crime? I mean, there aren't really a whole lot of ways to put running really fast to use, other than the Olympics. And people claim that being a meta is cheating or glory-hogging or something, which I don't understand. It's not like I took drugs to super speed up my body, or anything. So I have a superpower: oh, well. It's a part of me. No one claims cheating when someone with an IQ of 150 does better on a test than someone with an IQ of 95. And the glory-hogging thing. You know, I bet there are going to be people who say I engineered this whole thing as a desperate, teenage cry for attention. That I'm somehow responsible for those armed guys interrupting the _one_ field trip I've looked forward to _all year_ and threatening to kill my _teacher and classmates_ just so that I could get all this _attention_. Because, you know, it's not like I kept my identity secret for a reason or anything. Oh, no. I do all this _for attention_!"

During the silence that followed, Kid Flash suddenly came to the realization that he had just thrown a small hissy fit on live television. His parents were going to kill him later.

"How do you manage to keep your grades up between helping the Flash take down Rogues like Captain Cold and Weather Wizard?" Wally had to hand it to the lady. That was both the smoothest recovery ever, and she even looked like she was legitimately interested in what he had to say, despite the overall stupidity of the question. He had _superspeed_. He could get what took a normal person hours to do done in the space of a few minutes—sometimes seconds, depending on how much effort he decided he was going to put in.

"I do my homework," he settled on as the least insulting answer he could come up with.

"Yes, but you've been fighting crime for, what, three years now? And each of those, you've managed to make it to Nationals in the yearly Science Fair Competitions held all across the country. Where do you find the time to get all this…_stuff_ done?"

"He's the Fastest Kid Alive, of course." Natalie Smith jumped as the Flash himself suddenly appeared behind the two of them, waving at the camera. Wally nearly passed out at the wave of relief that flooded through him. "He has more time in a day than most people have in a year. Besides, I never let him help me unless his homework's done. School _always_ comes first."

"Wow, um. Flash. You're the Flash." Wally's uncle smiled reassuringly at the almost fainting lady. Bright blue eyes reflected amusement from under the cowl.

"Yes, I am. And I've got the next…three minutes to answer any questions you might have for me because my partner here really should be getting to class."

Natalie Smith nodded eagerly, and Wally was back inside the school before he even registered leaving.

Implausible deniability was suddenly that much more implausible.

**TBC...**

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. :)

Reviews would be lovely.


	3. Chapter 3

**Under Stormy Skies**

The day continued mostly uneventfully. Wally was having a hard time dealing with all the positive attention he was getting all of sudden. One notable freshman had even wandered up to him and asked for an autograph. He had sort of meandered away when he realized he most likely wasn't getting one after the older teen continued to stare blankly at him for a while.

And then…Physical Education happened. Wally had never had a problem with his P.E. class before. He had always been one of those students overlooked in favour of the athletes. He never caused trouble, never spoke out, and if he were suddenly the target of five million idiots' idea of 'fun' and ended up with a whole legion of balls thrown at him, well, at least he didn't wear glasses. He hadn't even thought about what would happen in this class until it was 10:13 a.m., the bell for class was ringing, and he was half dressed-out in the locker room (at least he wasn't getting stared at now; no one really wanted to be caught watching another guy change). By then, it was too late to panic, and Wally had just accepted that whatever was going to happen was going to happen and headed out for the basketball court. It was dodge ball day.

Of course.

It wasn't even five minutes into the game that the problems started.

"Coach Harrison!" one of the other guys in the class called when he sidestepped a ball coming his way. "Wally's cheating!" And, oh dear god, this was exactly what Wally had been ranting about to Natalie Smith this morning. Idiots like this.

"No, I'm not!" the redhead replied hotly.

"You so _are_—you wouldn't have been able to dodge that ball if you weren't a freak, freak." Wally steamed, his lips pulled into a thin line. Red eyebrows narrowed, and he opened his mouth to snap back a scathing insult (maybe one of those Atlantean ones translated—Kaldur certainly knew how to belittle an opponent, as rarely as he did it). Before he could reply, though, the Coach spoke up.

"West, you're out." The stocky older man didn't even glance up from whatever he was writing down.

"_What?!_"

Now Harrison looked up, the bill of his baseball cap shadowing his eyes in a way Wally thought could easily rival most supervillains he encountered.

"You heard me, boy. You're out."

"I wasn't cheating!"

The whole class had stopped playing to watch the scene. The kid who had offered the accusation (Alex, or something like that—Wally couldn't bother to remember) stood back smirking.

"Doesn't matter. You're out. I saw your little tantrum on the news this morning. You doing what you can do ain't fair to the other students. You can sit in the bleachers for the rest of class." Steaming didn't even begin to fully explain Wally's feelings in that moment. He had always had an explosive temper—something he had inherited from his father, unsurprisingly. Over the short years of his life, though, having Barry, the calmest man to ever walk this planet and several others, around, getting his powers and learning to slow down in order to deal with people and their so dull, drawn-out lives, and moving to a new city had taught him patience and tempered him down, giving him the fun-loving, joking nature most people knew.

Today had just been a really long, really shitty day, and it wasn't even ten thirty yet. He couldn't deal with nonsense, not when he hadn't done anything wrong—anything except save his classmates and a couple teachers from getting killed, that is. Also, he may or may not have been spending a little too much time with the sidekick formerly known as Speedy. Anger tended to ooze out of Red Arrow's voice before he even opened his mouth to talk. No one quite knew how Roy managed that.

"No." The whole class let out a surprised noise at his response. They had never seen Wally talk back to a teacher before. As far as they knew, he was just one of those geeky science kids who always did what was asked of him. Of course, up until this morning, as far as most of them knew, he wasn't a superhero in his spare time.

"Excuse me?" The Coach looked like he was getting angry, too.

"I said, 'no'. That's…that's _bullshit_!" A collective gasp went up. He had just cursed at a _teacher_. "And _discriminatory_ bullshit, at that. Just because I can run faster than…well…everyone, you're going to accuse me of not giving everyone else a fair chance? I know exactly how fast I was going—something I can tell because I'm not an idiot—and it was perfectly average. I wasn't doing anything wrong." Wally laughed suddenly, and it was clear that he was growing more and more upset with each word. "I mean, God—you sit here everyday and watch these assholes torment all the non-athletes and don't do a thing to stop it. I've seen you _laugh_ about it before when I _let_ myself get hit by five million basketballs thrown at me—because, no, we weren't even playing _dodge ball_ that day—and other people, too. Oh…and do you even have any idea how annoying it is to stand and wait for things to hit you? No, probably not. Well, let me tell you. It's annoying. It's like watching a turtle wade through pudding. The really thick kind."

Wally wasn't even paying attention to what was going on around him now as he continued to rant. Coach Harrison's face was approaching a purple colour as the man scribbled furiously on his clipboard.

"But you sit here and watch all this happen. Why the hell are you even a teacher? Jackasses like you are the reasons bullies exist! Hell, you are one! Because the moment you find out that I can do something more even though I have clearly been restraining myself, you tell me I can't play? _Like hell_. You want to see me play fast? The game will be over before you can blink."

Wally glowered as he finished and glared petulantly at his teacher. His hands itched to throw one of the dodge balls at the coach, but, now calmer, he realized he was probably in enough trouble as it was. Besides, that purple colour his teacher's face was turning was probably not healthy.

Good.

"West…," Coach Harrison began slowly, his teeth grinding together. He didn't say anything else for a second, clearly trying to keep himself under control. He ripped the paper off of his clipboard and handed the equally angry teen the pink referral slip. "Principal's office," he growled, pointing at the gym doors. Wally 'hmph'ed and disappeared into the locker room in literally an instant, reappearing not a moment later dressed in his usual clothes. He shot a pointed glare at his teacher (and that stupid blonde kid who started this whole thing for good measure) before disappearing again.

xxx

"So, I guess crime fighting must run in the family." Barry glanced up from where he was trying to find a DNA match in the computer's database to see Patty Spivot leaning over the table. The blonde woman was smiling at him, but he just stared blankly, unsure of what she was talking about. For a second he panicked. She was a smart woman, after all, had she somehow connected Wally/Kid Flash to Barry/Flash?

"You, doing this. Him, the Flash's sidekick," she clarified, and he relaxed and turned back to the computer screen. "Must be something in the blood."

"He and Flash are _partners_…technically speaking. He's a little sensitive about the s-word. And we're not actually related, you realize. He's my wife's nephew."

"You know what I mean. I mean, you brought him with you for 'Bring Your Child to Work' Day. Besides, that kid adores you. If I didn't know you so well, I'd think _you_ were the Flash with the way he worships the ground you walk on." Barry smiled at the irony of that. "What I don't understand is how someone so ADD can actively fight supervillains."

"Oh, Wally's not ADD," the blonde man replied. "He's just impatient. He thinks faster then normal people and hates to slow down long enough to interact with them. He's gotten a lot better, though—I swear, Wally used to have the worst temper I've ever seen."

Patty paused and frowned, catching Barry's attention again. "I've met your nephew, and I know he's a good kid and all—but do you think its wise to give a teenager with anger issues a free pass to beat up as many people as he wants? I mean, there's already a bunch of people protesting the Flash for having a fifteen-year-old fight dangerous criminals, and I think a group of them are accusing your in-laws of neglect and trying to get Child Services involved."

"Wait…_what_?" That was the first Barry had heard of this. They had only broken the news about Wally this morning! Sometimes, how fast people could move stunned even him—and he was the Fastest Man Alive. And Wally probably didn't even know yet. Barry groaned. Wally was most definitely not going to be happy when he found this out. "That's ridiculous! Mary does a great job taking care of her son. If you ask me, she's probably _too_ involved in Wally's life. And Wally's the most responsible teen—" The Flash was suddenly cut off in his fervent defence of his sidekick by his cellphone. He grabbed it, and glanced at the number. It looked familiar, but the blonde couldn't place it because this was a new phone—his last one had been frozen during the latest battle with Captain Cold.

"Hello?" he answered. "Yes, this is Barry Allen…no, they'd be at work…I'm not sure what you're…Wally _what_?… No, I understand. I'll be right there." Barry hung the phone up even slower than normal (and he always made sure to do things extra slowly so that people wouldn't suspect he was the Flash), and stared dumbly at the thing for a few seconds.

"You okay?" Patty asked.

"Uh…yeah. That was Wally's school. I think my nephew just got suspended." He paused for a second. "I'm taking lunch early. They want me to pick him up."

"Pick him up?" the analyst questioned, one light eyebrow raised. "In what car? I know you take the bus to work. But since you asked so nicely, I'll drive you." Barry opened his mouth to protest, but the woman held up a hand to silence him. "Don't give me any of that eco-friendly nonsense you like to spout. It's a fifteen-minute drive; it'll take you a good hour to get there on the bus."

The woman presented a good point. Unfortunately, it was a two-second journey on foot for the superhero, so taking a ride would definitely delay him in getting there. But the laws of secret identities (which Wally had officially broken all of, even if for the right reasons) gave him no actual reason to refuse the ride without breaking them himself.

"Thanks, Patty," he finally settled on, shooting the woman a broad smile.

xxx

Wally sat in the waiting area for the principal's office moodily. For the first time in his life, he wasn't waiting to be rewarded. No, rather, he was more than likely waiting to be suspended. As if his day could get any worse. It didn't help that he couldn't even be alone in his trouble. No, he was joined by another, older redhead, whose long hair was pulled into a loose ponytail. The guy kept glancing over at him, too.

"So," his companion finally began after what felt like years of waiting (but, in actuality, had only been about a minute or two—superspeed could be a bitch that way). "Wally, was it?"

"Yes, it's Wally. Yes, I'm Kid Flash. Yes, I'm here because I got in trouble. No, you can't have my autograph," he snapped, slumping lower in his seat.

"Well, that's a relief because I really don't have a pen on me right now. Though I'm sure I could've sold it for plenty on eBay. I'm Hartley, by the way. Hartley Rathaway."

Wally turned to study his companion more fully, frowning as a hint of recognition slipped through his mind.

"Hey, I know you…" he began, registering the brief flash of alarm that passed over his fellow student's face, but shrugging it off.

"You, uh…you do?"

"Yeah…you're that…senior, in band, always getting in trouble for…um…I'm not sure, actually, I've never really bothered to pay attention. Sorry."

Hartley grinned in reply, leaning further back into his uncomfortable, plastic chair. "Defying the establishment, usually. Protests, posters, maybe some minor vandalism, that one time I may or may not have stolen food from the cafeteria to give to someone who genuinely needed it. Just call me Robin Hood."

The junior hero laughed, and then frowned. "Wait…you stole food from the caf? Aren't you, like, rich or something? Why would you need to _steal_ it?"

"It's not about the money! The fact is, we shouldn't _have_ to pay for lunches. Forcing children to pay for lunch helps perpetuate the system that keeps the rich and poor separate—it creates mindsets and mentalities that keep the poorer among us buried under the beliefs that we have imposed upon them. Why should they starve so that some people who have already made millions can get five dollars more from some overfed, obese asshole who could do with shedding a few pounds before he gets diabetes as a teen? Is it really fair that we should give that idiot another meal just because he has money when we have underweight, malnourished kids running around, unable to eat because they just can't afford it? Even with the so-called 'benefits' we have for the poor; those only cover a very, very slim percentage of our country's destitute—anyone who makes above the poverty line is screwed, and a large majority of those still can't afford to live. Why should they be punished because of the corporate douche bags who only know of charity as something to get a tax break on so they can make more money? I shouldn't have to pay for lunch for someone who needs it! That's a complete injustice! I mean, do _you_ think that's fair?"

Hartley was staring at Wally in a sort of, "well, you're a hero, what do you think?" way, only much more condescending. It was as if he were expecting Wally to say something contrary simply because he worked in favour of the "established system". The redhead had heard that spiel before, more than once, and he never quite knew how to respond to it.

"Wow, you sound like the Pied Piper," the younger teen finally settled on. His eyes closed as a nervous laugh erupted from his throat, causing him to miss the momentary panic that flashed in his new acquaintance's eyes. "But, um, I guess I see what you're saying?" he tried.

Hartley scoffed, shaking his head. "I don't expect you to understand. It's like…healthcare. God, don't get me _started_ on healthcare!"

"I won't!" the sophomore exclaimed quickly, sensing the direction the conversation was going. Wally had the feeling that if the older redhead started, he wouldn't be stopping any time soon. And the senior was opening his mouth…

Thankfully, at that moment, Ms. Tuft, the principal's secretary, spoke up. "Mr. West? Mr. Abbott will see you now."

Wally was through the door before the period ended her sentence.

xxx

Pulling up to the school was an absolute nightmare. Reporters' vans filled the parking lot, with the actual people themselves standing around in a large shark pool full of cameras, waiting to try and get that one quick glance at the boy who was Kid Flash. The instant Barry stepped out of Patty's car was like blood in the water as one man shouted, "Look; it's the uncle!" and the rest of the vultures moved in one fell swoop to surround him. Honestly, this was worse than the traffic outside the Hall of Justice, and if Barry hadn't been used to dealing with reporters on a regular basis, he might have been put off. As it was, he just ignored them all and pushed through the mass of bodies and blinking lights to reach the front door.

Stepping into the school was a drastic change from outside, as the hallways were almost completely empty—although, it was easy to see kids trying to peak through the windows of the few classroom doors he passed as the blonde hero made his way to the front office.

There was no one at the desk when he reached the inside, although there was a red-haired kid, distinctly not Wally although he did look a bit familiar, sitting in a chair waiting.

"Hi," the kid greeted with a brief wave.

Barry frowned and raised an eyebrow. "Do I…know you from somewhere?"

"No, I don't think so," he replied.

"Huh," the police scientist began, but before he could continue, the front desk secretary returned. "Hi, I'm Barry Allen? I got a call about Wally because you couldn't reach his parents. West, I mean."

"Yes, I know who you're talking about," she returned snootily. "I'm sure _everyone_ knows who you're talking about. He's in the principal's office, and Mr. Abbott is just _dying_ to speak with you." The sarcasm absolutely rolled off of this lady's tongue. Idly, the superhero wondered what her problem was, but instead of saying anything just politely nodded and thanked her as she picked up the phone and informed the principal of his arrival. There were a few moments of conversing that had Barry shifting impatiently and that strange kid sitting there eyeing him curiously before the woman hung up and directed him through a door at the back of the office with the title "Principal" stamped on the window.

Politely thanking the woman once more, the blonde superhero entered the small office to see his nephew sitting slouched in a chair in front of the desk, arms crossed and glaring at both nothing and everything in a way that Barry couldn't decide was more like Roy or Connor. Wally seriously needed to cut down on the amount of time he spent with angry people. They were beginning to rub off on him.

Behind the desk sat a rather stern looking brown-haired man, and Barry shot him what he hoped was a friendly, disarming smile as he took the empty seat next to his sidekick.

"Hi," he greeted. "Might I ask what this is about?"

"Yes," the principal replied, and here the police scientist noted the name plaque that read 'John Abbott' sitting on the desk that was cluttered with papers and binders and several stress balls—much like the tiny, box-like office as a whole, actually. "Well, your nephew here," the man glanced at Wally, whose glare darkened more, if that were even possible, "caused quite the disturbance in his P.E. class. According to Coach Harrison, he was cheating during the game, and when he was asked to sit out he grew belligerent and disrespectful, even going so far as to use profane language. While I understand that Wally is a…_special_ child, and that he does a lot for this city, I cannot tolerate this kind of behaviour at my school. Especially not from someone who should know better."

Barry frowned, especially when he noticed the way Wally's lips had tightened into thin white lines, although the teen hadn't even moved to defend himself. Still, aside from the cheating thing, and with a little exaggeration that all school officials used, it didn't sound too unreasonable if Wally had already been having a bad day and had in some way been provoked. The proposed punishment, though…

"So…you're suspending him? Doesn't that seem a little much for something so simple? Especially when it's the first offense of a usually good student."

"It doesn't matter how good a student he may be, Mr. Allen—and I like Wally well enough—but threatening a teacher is—"

"Wait. Threatening a teacher? That's a very serious accusation, Mr. Abbott. Especially against someone who is a _superhero_ in his spare time. And if you know Wally at all, then you would know that he would _never_ threaten a teacher!"

"Yes, well, before yesterday I never would have thought he would be a metahuman who regularly beats up men twice his age. That's made me reevaluate my whole opinion of him, I'm sorry to say."

Barry glanced at Wally out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't shifted at all, which went to say just how upset he really was. Talking about him like he wasn't sitting right there was probably not helping, either.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Abbott, but would you mind if I spoke to my nephew alone for a moment?"

"By all means," the administrator replied, making quick leave of the room. Barry could see the man hovering outside the closed door through the windows, and idly wondered if the principal was trying to eavesdrop before turning to his sidekick.

"…Threatening a teacher?" he asked simply.

"I didn't threaten anyone!" Wally protested immediately, glaring at his uncle for even _suggesting_ the possible belief of such a statement.

"I know you didn't," Barry responded easily, making sure to smile reassuringly at the decidedly not happy redhead. "So why don't you tell me what really happened?"

Wally sighed and straightened up before recounting the tale. How what's-his-name had accused him of cheating. How Coach Harrison, who had never liked Wally, hadn't even listened to his side before unfairly trying to take him out of the game. Barry furrowed his eyebrows as he listened to his nephew's story (who had even gone so far as to admit that, yes, he had indeed been a bit disrespectful and he _had_ called his teacher a jackass, which they were most definitely going to address later).

"But I don't know where he even gets off implying that I threatened anyone!" Wally continued angrily. "And then, I tried to explain myself to Mr. Abbott, and he wouldn't even _pretend_ to listen to me. Before yesterday, he would've believed me! Does having superpowers really matter that much? I mean, I save people's lives all the time, for crying out loud. I mean, hey, all of _humanity_ would've _died_ the other day if I hadn't known how to deactivate that volcano. But does anyone care about that? No. And you know Hunter's not even speaking to me anymore. He's mad that I never told him, and he won't listen when I—"

"Kid," Barry interrupted before his nephew could rant any longer. "We can talk about it later. And believe me, we _will_ talk later," here he fixed the redheaded teen with a stern look, "as well as sit down and talk with your parents. Who, by the way, you're very lucky were busy and couldn't be reached because I highly doubt that they would be as calm as I'm being right now about this. Either way, that's not important right now. What's important is that I'm sure I can swing you out of this suspension. We'll deal with this, I'll take you home, and then we'll talk."

"Fine," Wally grouched, slumping back down in his seat. Barry stood up and fetched the principal. Mr. Abbott returned to his seat, but before he could say anything, the blonde scientist began to speak.

"I believe my nephew when he says he didn't threaten anyone, and to suspend him over something like this is ridiculous, especially when I'm sure you have yet to actually question any of the other students who witnessed the altercation in order to ascertain the facts. What this seems like to me is that you're attempting to make some sort of example out of a good student who generally stays out of trouble and protects the community out of no obligation whatsoever during his free time—while keeping his grades well above average, might I add. Detention for his disrespect would be more than understandable, but suspension is far too harsh a punishment for what he did." Barry stopped and took a breath, more for effect than anything else.

"The only thing I can see here is that you're possibly discriminating against him because he's a metahuman. That's the only reason I can possibly think of if you're moving to suspend him over something without getting the full facts. I am sure the Flash would love to hear how you're treating his sidekick. The Justice League has many connections, I'm sure you're aware, including to some of the best lawyers in the states (and even some abroad), and I know for a fact that he would have no issue calling on favours to bring something like this to court. And, even if it were only Wally's word against the coach's, who do you think people are more likely to believe? A grumpy, middle-aged coach who has been known to pick on students and ignore all but his favourites, or the fifteen-year-old superhero with no previous black marks on his record who risked his life and exposed his identity in order to save his classmates' and teachers' lives?"

The blonde hero stopped and gave the administrator an even look, his blue eyes reflecting a cool equal to the likes of Batman himself. When the man made the slightest movement to open his mouth, Barry continued.

"As it is, I have half a mind to convince his parents to pull him from this school, if this is the way he's going to be treated. I'm absolutely positive the press would love to hear the reason why, should that be the case."

Mr. Abbott looked like a fish, the way his mouth was flopping back and forth between closed and gaping. Wally, too, looked distinctly surprised, and was half-staring at him with a look of awe he hadn't seen on that freckled face since the teen had found out his secret identity.

"Mr. Allen, I'm—I assure you, I didn't—"

Barry cut him off. "Yes. You did. Now I'm going to take Wally home for the rest of the day and have a long talk with his parents and the Flash about how to resolve this situation. I hope we can manage to reach a satisfying arrangement."

"I don't see why we can't do that now!" the brown-haired administrator cut in hurriedly. "Detention seems an acceptable compromise. For tomorrow, I'll assign it, as I assume you still want to check your nephew out of school for the remainder of the day?"

Barry nodded. "Yes, thank you." The principal wasted no time in filling out the necessary form for the punishment and handed it over to the uncle, who passed it on to Wally, who stared at it with a barely decipherable look on his face.

They exchanged false pleasantries to end the conversation before Wally and Barry got up to leave, Barry stopping to sign Wally out and Wally waving to that other strange kid from before who was still sitting there before going out into the hallway. Here, the blonde man turned to his nephew.

"So, as it is, it's going to be a pain getting through the flood of reporters out there by myself. Think you could speed two blocks over, and I'll come around and pick you up to give you a ride home? That'll give us some time to talk."

"Uh, yeah, sure," the teen hero agreed before stopping. "Wait. What do you mean give me a ride? You don't own a car."

"Patty gave me a lift over. Fasterthanthe_ bus_, she says," and Wally snorted at that one, "and I couldn't exactly say no to that logic, could I?"

"No, I guess not," he agreed. "But Patty? Isn't she that co-worker that's always trying to get into your pants?" The disdain in his voice was obvious.

"First of all, no, Patty knows I'm_ married_. And second of all, we'll talk later. Go. Run. Shoo. I'll see you in a few minutes, Kid."

The redhead grinned, clearly in a much better mood now. "Whatever you say, Uncle Barry." And then he was gone at a speed a normal eye couldn't follow, although his uncle watched him until he passed through the backdoors. And then the blue-eyed man sighed and looked towards the entranceway, where he was going to have to fight his way through an army of reporters once more. "The things I do for this Kid," he muttered fondly.

**TBC...**

Thanks for reading! Review, it does a writer good. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Under Stormy Skies**

Barry ran a hand through his light hair with a sigh as he waited for Patty to bring her car around, doing his best to ignore all the microphones shoved into his face and questions shouted at him by overenthusiastic reporters. He had responded with a simple, "No comment," as soon as he had stepped out of the building again, but if there was one thing he had learned from his wife, it was that reporters were relentless.

"Mr. Allen, what prompted you to come to the school?"

"Did something happen with your nephew?"

"How long have you known that your nephew is Kid Flash!"

"Are you secretly the Flash?"

"Don't you find it irresponsible to let a fifteen year old fight villains twice his age?"

"Has the police department found any sort of leads in the death of Jeremy Tell?"

That last question almost stopped Barry up, just for the complete randomness, and if the information weren't specifically under a media blacklist at the department, he might've stopped and answered the lady's question just to get their minds onto something other than Wally for at least a few minutes. Luckily enough, Patty chose that moment to drive up, and ignoring all the microphones thrust into his face, Barry opened the door and stepped in.

"So?" the woman asked as she drove off. "How'd things go?"

Barry scowled. "Badly. I mean, Wally's no longer being suspended, but just the fact that that was the go-to option for that principal without even listening to his side of the story or questioning any of the other students on what really happened bothers me. Here I am wondering about, say, the _Rogues_ coming after my nephew, and it turns out the real problem is with ignorant teachers at his school who just don't like him. I mean, come on! Threatening a teacher? I knew the minute those words left that principal's mouth that that was a load of crap. I just wonder how Mary's going to deal with all this. She already gets stressed out enough over Wally."

Patty blinked.

"Oh, Wally's meeting us two blocks away, if you don't mind stopping to pick him up. He just doesn't want to deal with all the reporters right now."

"Oh, sure, no problem," the blonde woman replied, turning her car in the direction her superhero friend was pointing. A few minutes later, she pulled up to the designated curb, and Wally jumped into the car. Barry caught the subtle glare the redhead shot at the woman and sighed.

"Hey, Wally," the woman greeted easily, glancing at the boy in the backseat through the rear view mirror.

"Hi," he responded shortly, folded arms across his chest and turning to stare out the window.

"So," Patty continued as she pulled back onto the road, "Kid Flash, huh? Got to say, I really didn't see that one coming."

"If you don't mind, I'd really rather not talk about it right now," Wally snapped.

"Sorry, just trying to make small talk."

"Well, _don't_."

"Wally!" Barry exclaimed, shooting Patty an apologetic look. "Bad day or not, that wasn't called for."

"Not called for? You want to know what's not called for? I do a good thing—a lot of good things, actually—and it's like all these people are trying to punish me for it! I mean, okay, sure, Coach Harrison's _always_ been out to get me, but _Mr. Abbott_? And where does Hunter get the nerve to stop speaking to me! I mean, hey, all I did was _save his life_. And then—_reporters_! And this is only the first day! So _excuse_ _me_ if I'm a little stressed—I think I deserve to be right now!"

Barry turned to stare at Wally, his jaw hanging open slightly. His teenage sidekick glared petulantly at him, not even attempting to be subtle anymore, and the redhead's body looked even tenser than before. In the entire history of their relationship, from the time they first met six years ago until this very instant, Wally had never so much as even seemed seriously upset with Barry for anything. In fact, the only time the blonde man could even recall his nephew seriously arguing with him was when Wally had been insistent on becoming Kid Flash, and Barry said no on the grounds that successfully replicating a dangerous experiment to give yourself superpowers with no adult supervision at the age of twelve proved that he was a genius, yes, but also proved he was completely irresponsible and had a distinct lack of common sense. Wally, in all his preteen wisdom, hadn't agreed with that logic.

But never before had Wally ever raised his voice to Barry. There had been a few times with Mary, obviously, and he did so frequently with his stepfather—there was even one memorable shouting match with Iris last year that was ingrained in all their minds forever, but when it came to Barry, the redhead tended to whine and complain and try to weasel his way out of situations where he knew he was in trouble. Such a flagrant show of disrespect had Barry frozen and unsure as to how to continue. But, hey, Hal Jordan didn't call him "Saint Barry" for nothing. Patience of a saint, and all that.

As Barry opened his mouth to respond, though, he noticed a brief look of horror flick over Wally's face as the hostility dropped away from the boy.

"Oh my god—Uncle Barry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—um." Green eyes flicked over at Patty for a second, and Barry got the silent part of the apology. The _'Please don't ground me from being your sidekick'_. "It's just…been a really long morning. Sorry."

Barry was silent for a second, and when he opened his mouth to speak, it wasn't to address Wally's apology. "Hey, Patty, think you can drop us off here? It's close enough that we can walk."

"Sure, no problem," the woman responded lightly. There was a forceful cheery lilt to her voice, and Barry found himself smiling weakly at her as she pulled the car over. Wally stepped out of the car quietly and much more subdued than he had stepped in. Barry paused after getting out of the car.

"Uh…thanks for the ride, Patty. It's appreciated."

"Don't mention it," she grinned. "Oh, and Wally," she called, catching the boy's attention.

"Yeah?" he responded, ducking his head back through the window.

"You and the Flash do a good thing for the gem cities, you know, and even if a few people might give you a hard time, remember that most of us appreciate it. And those that don't _will_ appreciate it the next time you save them from Captain Cold."

"Thanks." Wally shot her a grin, and Barry smiled to himself to see his nephew looking sufficiently cheered up from just those few words alone. They both waved at the car as she pulled off, and then took a moment to just stand there together before Barry turned to his nephew, eyes soft.

"So. A run then?" he offered. The redhead practically lit up before he paused and glanced around. It wasn't an overly crowded area they were in, in fact they were closer to the outskirts of downtown and just about at the border to where the suburbs began, but there were still quite a few people milling around in their yards.

"Um. Maybe we should find someplace less populated to go do that. I mean, just because my secret's ruined doesn't mean yours has to be, too, and people might notice if we both disappear down some alley and don't come out what with me being Kid Flash, and you being my uncle and all. Not that hard to put two and two together."

"That just means we need to move fast before anyone notices we're here," Barry grinned, and then disappeared from Wally view, appearing behind him in full costume. "Race you!" he called.

"Wait—ugh, _Flash_!" the sidekick called petulantly before huffing and racing after his mentor.

And as horrible as the day had been so far, it was strangely freeing for Wally to just be able to run after his now speeding away uncle without worrying about stopping to put his costume on or anyone seeing and connecting the dots. He had connected those dots for the general public all on his own, after all. He might as well reap what little benefits he could get.

**xxx**

Racing with Uncle Barry had always been relaxing. Well, _racing_ might not actually be the right word, as the Flash was infinitely faster than his sidekick, but Wally had been getting faster lately. His family had surmised that it was puberty holding him back. Barry had been fully grown when he'd gotten his powers, but Wally was still developing. Wally, though, knew that no matter what they said, he would never be as fast as his uncle. _No one_ could be as fast as Barry. He was the Flash. And he was even more amazing because he always went slow enough that Wally could keep up with him no problem.

Although, really, it was more the _Uncle Barry_ part of it than the _racing_ part that was calming. Wally found that his uncle tended to exude an aura of calmness and patience that just latched on to anyone standing in the area, no matter the situation. That was why, on the rare occasions that Barry did get really, truly angry, it was a sight to behold. It wasn't explosive like Wally's. It was calm and collected, just like everything else about the hero. It was exactly like how the man had dealt with Mr. Abbott, but one thousand times worse.

Right now, Barry was angry. Wally could tell it by the way the red clad man held his shoulders a little straighter and a little tenser, and the edge in his voice whenever he addressed Batman. The teen didn't know what had happened during the mentors' meeting, but the empty pit in his stomach that had gone away after the long race around the world with his uncle, the two of them stopping at all their favourite food stops, was back with a vengeance.

Wally knew he shouldn't have come to the mountain today. He had been perfectly content to head back home for the day—after all, it was barely even two by the time they had gotten done—and let Barry go back to work, but his mentor had refused.

"You need to face this, Wally, you can't just ignore things and hope it'll go away," he'd said. "Besides, I'll go back in tonight. Hey, I'll even talk to Batman for you so you don't have to." The playful grin was accompanied by a hand ruffling Wally's already messed up red hair. "And this way, I can just come over to your house and talk to your parents all at once."

And, so, they had come to the mountain, where everyone else on the team had already gathered, mentors and all. Flash had frowned to see everyone else there, but Batman had called him to the side to meet with the other mentors before he started speaking. The team themselves had just stood around awkwardly for a while before making their way to the couches to sit around and watch television. Unsurprisingly, when they flicked through the news channels, almost every single one was talking about Wally. M'gann, Connor, and Kaldur seemed completely unbothered (aside from Miss M's congratulations for saving those kids), but Artemis kept shooting Wally looks of pity and Robin was constantly shifting in his seat, glancing at his best friend out from under the corner of his shades. All it did was make Kid Flash feel infinitely more uncomfortable around his friends.

It was extremely unfair, the redhead thought. These were his friends, his _superhero_ friends. The ones who _weren't_ normal. He shouldn't be sitting here stuck feeling uncomfortable because Artemis and Robin didn't know how to act without bringing up the elephant in the room. Wally preferred the way M'gann, Connor, and Kaldur were acting. They legitimately just didn't care. Okay, sure, they didn't see the big deal because two were from extremely different cultures and one of them was basically just an overgrown, extremely mature baby, but just because the rest of the world now knew that Wally West was Kid Flash didn't mean it should affect how the people who already knew the secret acted towards him.

And then, just when Wally was about to confront his friends, the mentors had emerged, Barry coming out straight-shouldered and tight-lipped, and addressing Batman in clipped tones.

"At least tell him alone!" the younger speedster overheard his uncle say to the rodent-themed hero, only to be ignored.

"In light of recent events concerning Kid Flash," Batman was addressing the team, and Wally forced himself to pay attention, "Wally, you're going to be suspended from official team missions barring emergencies until we can sort out this situation. This doesn't include training, and you're still expected to show up—"

"Wait—_what_?" And…that actually wasn't Wally who had exclaimed that. He turned to see that Robin had stood up and was confronting his mentor. Everyone else sat wide-eyed, looking as stunned as the redhead felt. "You can't do that! Wally hasn't done anything wrong!"

"Robin—"

"My apologies, Batman, but I agree with Robin. Wally's an integral member of our team, and he cannot be punished for doing nothing wrong," Kaldur said this time.

"This isn't a matter of punishment, Aqualad. This is a matter of resolving this situation in a way that's best for the team."

"I'm sorry, but that's a load of bullshit." Everyone turned to stare at Wally. The only people not with surprise painted on their face were Barry, Batman, Robin, and SB.

"Kid Flash—"

"Don't _'Kid Flash'_ me! I've already taken all kinds of crap from a bunch of different people today—I don't need this here, too!" And then he was gone, through the cave entrance and not the zeta tube. And Batman was left with five other kids all glaring at him.

The sound of someone clearing their throat caused the man to twitch, and he cut his eyes to the side to glower at his fellow Leaguer.

"_What_."

"I told you he would take that the wrong way," Flash said, and then a breeze flew past the rest of them, leaving behind an empty spot.

Wally had actually gotten pretty far away by the time Barry caught up with his nephew. The redhead didn't even spare his uncle a glance as the man fell in step with him, and they continued the fairly short trip back to Central City in silence. This wasn't the fun, calming run of before—at least not for Wally. Barry needed this to take the edge off of his frustrations. Bruce didn't mean any harm, he knew that much. The bat was just too damn stubborn for his own good, and didn't always listen to the advice of others, even when it was about someone else's mentee—or someone else's own relative, for that matter.

And, normally, Bruce talking like that wouldn't be a problem. But with the mood Wally had been in today, and the extreme stress he had clearly been experiencing since yesterday, Barry had known that Wally would react like this. Even if Bruce had managed to get the rest of his sentence out and explain that this was so that Wally wouldn't have as much to worry about until things settled down, the Flash knew his sidekick probably wouldn't have heard much past "suspended". That damn word _again_ today. And Wally cared considerably more about his spot on the team than school, and he had at least known he was somewhat in the wrong in school that morning. Barry had known that Wally would just see this as being punished even _more_ for doing something right.

But Bruce would. Not. _Listen_.

This situation could've been easily averted, and instead Wally was even more upset than before.

And this was only the first day.

**xxx**

Unsurprisingly, when Barry and Wally finally made it back to Central City right around dinner time, it was to find hordes of reporters camped out outside the boy's front door. The street, too, was crowded with people, holding up all kinds of signs that the redhead didn't feel like stopping to read. His day was bad enough already without seeing what kinds of horrible things they might be saying about him. At least the car parked in the driveway signalled that his mother was home for the day.

"Flash! Kid Flash!" someone called, and everyone turned at once to see them, a roar starting among the people in the crowd.

"C'mon, Kid," Barry said from next to him, "Just think of it like talking to them normally."

"Oh, yeah, except for the fact that they're _right outside my house,_" Wally added.

Barry shrugged.

With a heavy sigh, the teen pasted on his best fake smile and decelerated, stopping at the bottom of the porch stairs and waving at the crowd. Predictably, they went wild. At least Wally could still continue to count on the fact that Central City loved their speedsters. It was somewhat reassuring, especially considering his teachers still seemed to hate him.

"Okay, okay!" He called out over the din, and the people quieted down a bit. Reporters held their mics out to capture whatever he might say, and for a second, the redhead faltered. Only the steadying arm on his shoulder from his uncle behind him kept Wally from bolting. Instead, he turned to shoot the man a slightly nervous smile before stepping out on his own and turning back to the expectant news people.

"Uh…Hi," he began. The redhead was shifting back and forth from foot to foot so fast that he doubted any of the cameras would even register him as moving—and if they did, he was probably about to be slightly blurry for the entirety of the live broadcast they were undoubtedly doing. But he couldn't help it. His chest felt like it was about to implode on itself, and for the first time the tight yellow fabric across his face felt constricting. This was not something he wanted to do. He was angry and snappish and was probably about to say the wrong thing again, but, come to think of it, that had never stopped him before.

For all the heroics he had accomplished over his extremely short lifespan, what Wally did next was, in his mind, undoubtedly the bravest of them all. He reached up, unzipped the zip on his neck, and pulled his cowl down.

"You all know me as Kid Flash," he said, making sure to project his voice for both the crowd and the camera, "But my real name is Wally West, and I'm a sophomore at Central City High. I'm fifteen, and I turn sixteen next month, but you guys probably already know that about me by now. I've had superspeed since I was twelve, and I've been working with the Flash since I was thirteen. I like science, girls, and food; I collect comic books and action figures; and I'm pretty adept at the tuba. I appreciate that you guys appreciate my—the Flash and I so much, but I do _not_ appreciate having my privacy invaded.

"This is my _home_, with my _parents_, where I go to take a break and recuperate and finish my homework and all the things I have to take care of on a day-to-day basis. I have an unbelievably long list of chores I do every day, and an even longer list of shows I need to catch up on, so while I think you guys are great, and I love the love, I'm going to have to ask you all to leave. Yes, I'm Kid Flash, but I have an entire life outside of being a superhero, and I would appreciate it if it remained largely undisturbed by the media. If you want to talk to me, you can do so by normal means: i.e. talk to the Flash," here Wally gestured to Barry, "Call my parents—which, really, you should be doing anyway, because I'm still a minor, here—or get in contact with my Aunt Iris. But I can't have you outside of my house like this."

Wally pulled his lips back into another forced smile.

"But right now I have a couple minutes before I need to go inside and finish my homework, so: any questions?" Several hands went up. Wally picked a familiar looking blonde woman, and when she held her microphone up he noticed it had GBS written on it. A coworker of his aunt's, then.

"Hi, Wally, Cat Grant from GBS. I just wanted to ask: yesterday, what was going through your mind when you saved your class at the labs? Did you think about the fact that you were about to reveal your identity to a room full of people?"

The crowd was silent now, and waiting for Wally's response with rapt delight.

"Well, mostly, I was thinking that I didn't want my favourite teacher to die." The crowd laughed, and Wally's grin relaxed. Pointing out another random face among the sea of reporters, Wally grinned wider when he heard the question from the man he had chosen.

"So, Kid Flash, do you have any ideas on what your winning science project is going to be on this year?"

"Actually, I was thinking to do something with volcanoes. Or androids. Or quantum physics. I haven't quite decided yet." Looking out at the people in the streets and on his front yard, Wally was pleased to notice that the crowds had thinned out significantly. Although, the ratio of news reporters to non-media-related persons had changed significantly. "But one more question, how about you, sir."

The brunette woman who'd been chosen steppeds forward, and mic out. "Does the fact that your father is in prison have any influence on your decision to dedicate your life to help protect this city?"

Wally froze. His lips tightened, and strained to keep his smile on his face, but inside he was already responding, and screaming at the woman. What right did she have to know that much about him and ask that kind of personal question?

"No comment," Barry stepped in, moving between Wally and the cameras. "I'm afraid that's all the time we can give you today." The sidekick was faintly aware of his shirt being grabbed, and then he found himself inside his house and sitting on his couch. The next second there was a giant bowl of ice cream sundae resting on the table in front of him.

Wally was losing time. It wasn't crawling like usual; instead it was slipping through the cracks and washing over him so fast it was like he had slowed down while everything else had sped up to his usual speed. Barry was talking to his parents, and saying things to him, but the redhead wasn't sure how he was responding—he wasn't even sure _if_ he was responding. He had to be, though, because his uncle hadn't taken up anything and didn't seem to have that frown on his face that he got when he was worried about how Wally was behaving.

Or at least Barry didn't until Wally blinked and his uncle was suddenly kneeling in front of him, clearly waiting for a response to whatever he had just said. The redhead shook his head to clear the fog before offering a weak smile.

"Um. Sorry. What did you just say?"

Barry smiled back and reached up a red-clad hand to ruffle his nephew's hair. "I was just asking if you're alright."

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright," Wally said.

"Great. Anyway, I need to get back to the lab. We have this big…_weird_…case right now, and it's probably not the best time to be taking days off like this. I'll tell you about it later, Kid."

"Sure." Barry stood up and smiled at Mary and Antonio before taking off. Wally barely caught the worried frown Barry shot at him before the hero was out the door, barely a breeze even ruffling the rest of them.

His ice cream was melted, Wally realised all of a sudden. A bowl of watery slop sat on the table in front of him. It was only about half of the sundae he had been given, but that was the thing—he had only eaten half of it. No wonder Barry looked concerned. As if on cue, his stomach twisted and let out a deep, loud growl.

"Uhh…is it almost dinner time?" he asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the kitchen. His mom let out a half breath of a sigh, and Wally thought he caught his dad muttering, "Oh, thank God," under his breath, but that could've been his imagination.

"Of course, sweetie," Mary answered. "And I made your favourite."

"…Everything?" Wally's eyes brightened at the prospect.

"It's all in the oven. Think you could set the table for us?"

A few seconds passed, and then, "Already done," Wally announced. "I put the food out, too."

"Great," his dad said, and then, "And perfect. Six o' clock."

"What's at six o' clock?" Wally asked once they were all seated at the table.

His mother clicked on the TV before replying. "Evening news."

"Aw, c'mon, do we have to? I mean, we all know what they're going to be talking about, and I think I've had enough of reporters for the whole _year_."

"Yes, we have to; Iris called and said she had a special report on during the evening news that we'd want to watch."

"Aunt Iris?" Wally perked up, reaching over to spoon food onto his plate. It would probably still be _Wally West is Kid Flash_ related, no doubt, but Iris was his favourite aunt for a reason. She usually only had good things to say about him, and if there were ever a reporter he wanted talking about him, well, Iris West-Allen was the best for the job.

"Oh, here we go," Mary said when images flickered onto the screen. She turned up the volume with the remote as the family settled in to their meal. Wally's parents didn't even try to correct him on his eating habits anymore, they just ignored him and faced the TV. Stuffing his face wasn't even bad manners as it was a natural way of life for him. Shoving as much food down as fast as possible was the way of the speedster. It did tend to gross most people out, but even Barry insisted that their eating habits were completely natural for them. And, as such, the TV had gone up in the dining room to give his parents something to watch other than his face as he stuffed food into his mouth at inhuman speeds.

Right now, the TV was playing clips of his impromptu interview from school, which caused Wally to role his eyes as his parents gave him disapproving, 'You-were-extremely-rude' looks. Wally just shrugged at them, his smile somewhat bashful, and Mary shook her head.

"My son," she muttered under her breath, and Wally stifled a laugh just in time for the screen to flicker to Iris. She was, thankfully, not standing outside of their house. Instead, the imposing statue of the Flash from directly outside the Flash museum stood silhouetted behind her.

"Good evening," she was saying, and Wally pulled himself away from his mashed potatoes to pay attention. "This is Iris West-Allen, here with GBS News for a special report on Kid Flash. Now, I must warn you: this isn't going to be like other reports on other news stations. This isn't about digging into Kid Flash's life to find out how many science fairs he's won, or how many detentions he's gotten, or whether or not he passed kindergarten with straight A's."

"Do they even grade kindergartners on an A-F scale?" Antonio snorted, but quickly found himself shushed by Mary and Wally.

_"This report is a personal testimony, from someone close to him, because as you may or may not have guessed, Wally West—Kid Flash—is my nephew." _Wally blushed and coughed uncomfortably as his aunt paused on the screen. Even worse than everything else that had happened today, this was actually kind of embarrassing. It felt like he was that kid on the playground whose parents came and defended him from older kids picking on him. Not to get him wrong: it was also kind of touching, and he didn't particularly mind if his very favourite Aunt wanted to defend him to the world, but it was just…

Did she really have to do it on her news broadcast?

_"Having a relative for a superhero, I have often considered heroes, and the nature of them,"_ Iris began again. Wally forced himself to pay attention, even as he scooped out another huge serving of green bean casserole and an even larger one of turkey onto his plate, making sure to grab a slice of pizza to complete his third go round.

_"Something we regular folk tend to forget often—something that I have not been permitted to forget for quite a few years—is that our heroes, underneath the masks and the bright colours and superhuman feats, are people. They get up every day, often live lives much like us: going to school, going to work, getting married, having kids, paying bills. Some are rich; some are poor. Some are old; some are young. Some are well-educated; some are simply street smart. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that outside of their busy lives, the hustle and bustle of every day problems, they commit themselves to something far greater. They put the needs of others above themselves constantly, going out of their way to save people from car accidents; from bank robbers; from supervillains. They don't have to. There's nothing requiring them to do this. A lot of metahumans, or geniuses, or people with the same capabilities commit themselves to lives of crime. And I'm sure there are a lot more who live their lives to themselves just like the rest of us. _

_"Our superheroes are the rare among us; the few. And we idolize them, respect them—worship them, even. We see them as more than they are; as the image they project, the icons we want to believe in, rather than the people that they are. And that's a good thing. It inspires us. It gives us hope. But they're not just celebrities. They wear masks for a reason. It's not about taking the credit for all the good they do. _

_"And that's why, in a situation like this, where we have one of our heroes unveiled before us, we as a people need to stop and take a moment to really reflect on what we're seeing. You're no longer just seeing Kid Flash. You also now have before you Wally West, a fifteen-year-old sophomore, who still has chores, still has homework, still has all the normal responsibilities of any other boy his own age. The only things that separate him are the fact that he has super speed, and the fact that he dedicates all his spare time to helping you._

_"This whole...situation, it's not just a media circus. This isn't a celebrity gossip rag. This is someone's life. Someone who has done this city—and this world—nothing but good. Someone who is going to continue everything he's been doing. He's not stopping because we know who he is. We know who he is because he decided that the safety of his classmates and everyone at S.T.A.R. Labs was more important than his own. _

_"And as much as looking at Kid Flash, you need to remember that you're seeing Wally West, when you look at Wally, you're not just seeing that gangly redheaded teen who is somehow, amazingly, Kid Flash, you're also seeing Kid Flash. One of our town's heroes. Thank you, and goodnight. Back to you, Cat." _

_"Thank you, Iris. Tune in tomorrow for a special interview with the Fla-." _

A sudden click shut the TV off, and Wally turned to see his mother with the remote in her hands.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Are you kidding?" Wally exclaimed. "That was, like, the best thing to happen all day! Well, I mean, other than this dinner." He gestured to his plate, which was currently an odd mash of tacos, pasta, and sushi, and completely missed the way both his parents blanched at the disgusting looking mess. "Remind me to give Aunt I, like, the biggest hug when I see her next. I thought that was going to be embarrassing."

"You would think you'd know your aunt better than that by now, o ye of little faith," Mary smiled back.

"She does always seem to have your back," Antonio added in.

"Definitely," Wally nodded, piling on more food from the seafood section of the table. Idly, he wished Kaldur were here—the Atlantean knew some insane fish recipes, which was a little weird, but awesome once Wally had gotten used to the fact that Kaldur wasn't opposed to eating fish just because he lived with them.

"Right," Mary muttered as she eyed her son's plate warily. This was why heaping piles of everything only came out on special occasions. No one but Barry and Jay could stomach watching Wally eat, and that was only because they ate just as badly themselves. "Anyway, your dad and I are going upstairs. Don't forget to clean up the kitchen before you go to sleep or head out or whatever you're doing. And if you're going to be the night, don't forget to call and leave a message."

Wally blinked and stopped what he was doing to glance up at his parents. "What?" he asked, and then realised that Barry probably hadn't told them anything. "Oh," he mumbled. "Yeah, I'm not, uh…I'm not going anywhere tonight."

"You're not? But you always go hang out with your friends at that mountain of yours."

"Batman…kind of…temporarily suspended me from the team."

There was silence, and Wally mentally braced himself for the explosion. '_5…4…3…2…1…'_

"He did _WHAT_?" Mary exclaimed, pushing herself up from the table. "That…that…_man_! Do you need me to have a word with him? How dare he! Why didn't Barry stop him! I'm going to have a word with your uncle; you better believe it! And then get him to take me to Batman, where I am going to give him a piece of my mind!"

"Moooom," Wally groaned, shoving another forkful of food into his mouth. "It's fine. It's okay." It really wasn't.

"It is _not_ okay! You love that team, and don't pretend like you're accepting this. I know you, child of mine. That team is your life! It's all you talk about—well, when you're not talking about science or school."

"Yeah, but, I mean, Uncle B already tried to talk him out of it, but Batman's…well…Batman."

"Well, Wally, this is when you need to learn an important lesson: neither Barry nor Batman are your _mother_. I'll get this fixed for you."

"Please don't," Wally begged, but was ignored. Good God, Dick was never going to let him live this one down if she went through with her threat. Mary, though, was at that point where she was just making idle threats under her breath as she picked her plate up off the table and left. Wally glanced at his step-dad, who shot him a sympathetic grin.

"You know there's no stopping her now," Antonio said ruefully.

"My life. I hate it," Wally replied.

"Well, look on the bright side, Wally. I'm sure you'll have a much easier time picking up girls from now on. Like that Linda girl you hang out with."

"Thanks, but that's not really helpful. If mom tries to talk to _Batman_, Rob's never gonna let me live it down. Neither will _Artemis_." He shoved two pancakes into his mouth. The strawberry syrup made him feel mildly better. But only mildly. Wally reached for the chocolate syrup.

"Well, I tried," the man replied, getting up from the table. "Don't forget to clean up after you're finished. Night, son."

"Night, dad," he replied half-heartedly, too set on smothering the waffles and pancakes he had saved for last with as much chocolate syrup as superhumanly possible to really pay more attention. But the happy feeling that spread over him when he took the first bite made it all worth it.

Wally couldn't wait to eat dessert.


End file.
